Shadow Priest Secrets

Mind Sear - a Raiders best friend.

AOE'ing trash is a lot of fun, but it serves a very important function - it gets people to bed earlier. Every raiding group wants to get as far as they can, as fast as they can, while members are awake and online. Splitting an instance over several days is great while learning the fights, but it is in everyone's best interest to burn through at maximum speed.

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Mind Sear Mechanics

As a Shadow Priest, you know that Mind Sear does not damage the target at all, only the surrounding mobs. This is a good and bad thing. Good, because if your target dies mid-cast, you lose the DPS from the rest of the channeling time and have to waste mana recasting it on a different target. Bad, because you are not DPS'ing all targets. This is a particular handicap with small pulls. Classes with spells like Blizzard, Volley, etc. are hitting all targets and have less DPS loss in small groups.

An analysis of Mind Sear damage (assuming good gear), reveals that it does about the same damage per tick (not counting crits), as Mind Flay. However, due to the Shadow Power talent and Mind Flay's good scaling as your gear reaches uber levels, overall damage is higher against a single target from Mind Flay. Considering Mind Flay is the lowest non-DoT DPS spell, that simply means that casting Mind Sear when you have only two targets, is a DPS loss and a mana waste.

In addition, as of patch 3.3.0, Mind Sear is capped to 10 targets worth of damage. So Mind Searing a group of eleven mobs provides the maximum potential DPS. Anything over that, and the damage per mob goes down to keep DPS at that cap.

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Strategy's to maximize Mind Sear

I use a simple Inner Focus and channeling macro with Mind Sear to improve DPS. The macro is simply:

#show Mind Sear
/cast Inner Focus
/cast [nochanneling:Mind Sear] Mind Sear

Every time Inner Focus is available, I get extra DPS and a free cast.

To maximize DPS, I use the following strategies.

  1. Large group pulls where the tank is running in and grouping up targets are the easiest (Naxx). Most classes, including Shadow Priests can't do a lot of damage while running. While chasing the tank, use this opportunity to put SWP on as many targets as you can. SWP adds the mystery debuff allowing Mind Sear to have a greater chance to hit each target if you are not hit capped without it. When the tank stops, immediately start Mind Sear spam. In this scenario it is critical to watch threat and your target's health. Should a mob pull off, use Fade immediately. Tanking is one of the hardest roles to play, and your tank has a lot to do in order to keep you alive. Assist them, by keeping targets grouped up where they belong.

    Should your target drop below 50% health, or is losing health rapidly (raid is focusing him), use the five second channeling time to tab or click through looking for a high health mob. You do not need to maintain your target when casting or channeling. Always keep a high health mob targeted while spamming your Mind Sear macro button. Spam the macro at all times! Even when clicking through looking for high health targets. Your Mind Sear will not be interrupted while switching targets or hitting the macro button. With practice you'll find that five seconds is a long time to find another target should your current target be low on health.

    As the target's burn down, watch carefully. When there are only three targets left, I VT, SWP, and Mind Blast my current target. This will get mana replenishment going. Return to Mind Sear until only two are left, then switch to your non-AOE spells.

  2. Things change a bit for group pulls where the raid is not moving. In this situation, it may seem like getting a few dots ticking for extra damage is a way to improve DPS, but in general it does not. Standing pulls are usually smaller and therefore get burned down by the raid really fast. Your DoT will barely have time to tick and you've lost a lot of time when you could have been Mind Searing. In this scenario, start Mind Sear spam right away. Again, watch for all the same things as above.
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What to do with two targets

So what if there are only two targets or you've burned the masses down to two? The answer here depends on mob health and expected lifespan.

If the mobs have lots of health and are expected to live a reasonable length of time, I use the following strategy. VT, SWP, Plague, target one. VT, SWP, and Mind Blast target two. As Mind Blast is casting, switch to target one. When Mind Blast completes against target two, Mind Flay target one, to refresh SWP. Periodically switch targets while spells are being cast in order to keep SWP refreshed. If the targets are going down quickly, do not reDoT, just use your direct damage spells. If they are not, keep dots applied. When finishing off targets or just waiting for a Mind Blast cool down to finish, you have an excellent opportunity to thrown in some Shadow Word: Deaths.

If the mobs are going to die fast, only VT the targets and concentrate on using Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Shadow Word: Death. In fact, you can VT just one target and go from there. The main thing here is to get mana regen going, and DoTs won't tick enough to be worth the casting time.

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